Saturday, July 6, 2013

Quinn pleads for Legislature to support his amendatory veto. Will they listen?

I
found it amusing that Gov. Pat Quinn would use the humble abode of one Elwood
J. Blues to make his statement in support of the changes he wants to make to a “concealed
carry” law now pending before the General Assembly.

﻿

QUINN: Will anybody listen?

For
Elwood is a fictional character created by actor Dan Aykroyd for The Blues
Brothers film and sketches – about as real as the chances that the Illinois
Legislature will willingly go along with Quinn’s desires on Friday to uphold
his amendatory veto when they convene next week.

TUESDAY
IS THE day that the Legislature is supposed to meet in a special session. It
was the date that Quinn had set for a deadline to approve something that he
could sign into law to address the financial problems caused by inadequate
funding of pension programs the state oversees.

But
the conference committee that was supposed to be dealing with the issue in
recent weeks has done little, and legislators openly say nothing will happen on
that issue.

Instead,
legislators are expecting the 11 a.m. session at the Statehouse in Springfield
to turn into a “concealed carry” session.

And
the same legislators who have no political respect for Quinn are likely to use
that date to strike him down in some way.

I’M
NOT ABOUT to predict what, exactly, the Legislature will do on Tuesday, or what
the vote will turn out to be. About the only sense I do get is that our
Legislature is hostile enough to want to ignore the governor – and probably
resents that he has any say on, or oversight of, what they do!

So
whatever it was that Quinn chose to say on Friday while gathering at Clark and
Addison streets (he chose the area because of the large number of taverns and
clubs in the area around Wrigley Field – meaning that Quinn’s take on “concealed
carry” would make it next to impossible to legally carry a firearm in the area)
isn’t likely to have much sway.

Even
though the sad part is that Quinn’s comments were really so straight-forward
that only the hardest-core ideologue could possibly find fault with them. Then
again, the problem on this issue is that we’re giving those ideologues too much
credibility at the expense of the true majority of our society.

AYKROYD (as BLUES): More credible?

“Public
safety should never be negotiated away or compromised, and I will never support
a flawed concealed carry bill that puts public safety at risk,” Quinn said, in
a prepared statement. “The common-sense changes I outlined this week make this
a better law and I encourage people to visit KeepIllinoisSafe.org, contact
their state legislators and urge them to support these important changes.”

WHAT
REALLY IS so radical about that statement!

Except
that legislators who feel that this issue is being forced down their throat by
a federal appeals court ruling that many don’t truly comprehend probably don’t
want to feel that Quinn is also telling them what to do.

Insofar
as Tuesday is concerned, the process says that for any kind of law to take
effect, the Legislature has to agree, in some way, with Quinn.

Either
they have to reach a 60 percent supermajority in favor of a motion to accept
Quinn’s changes, or they have to reach that same 60 percent vote level on a
motion to reject the changes – in which case, the bill as approved by the
Legislature becomes law.

BUT
WHAT HAPPENS if they make the motion to reject Quinn, and only get a 57 or 58
percent majority – which is a very real possibility?

Then,
we’re in nowhere-land. No law. The whole issue will come tumbling down. Who’s
to say what winds up happening if the federal courts wind up resolving the
issue? All because this issue has turned our state government officials into
nothing more than an ego trip.

The
fact that our state government – the same one, in theory, that let the
fictional Elwood falsify his driver’s license renewal with a phony home address
– has come down to that factor is truly the sad aspect of it all.

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.